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last updated: 5:30 PM EST 9/12/2012

Annie, the Dark Child

Annie is usually played as a mage in midlane. Annie has strong base damages, the possibility to stun in an AoE, and can be quite durable. Annie's Q is good for last hitting, and charging up her stun by doing so. If you've harassed your enemy down, Annie has a lot of potential to kill someone with her combo at level 6. Against a single target, use your Q to stun before casting other spells. It has the shortest cooldown, so you have a chance to cast it again, and it cannot miss so you don't risk wasting a stun charge or an entire ult. In teamfights, try and stun multiple people with your W or ult. Annie can be built pretty much anywhere on the scale from a glass cannon mage to a tank, due to her CC and base damages, but a middleground is usually best. Good items for Annie can include a Rod of Ages(if you don't expect to be given blue buff), a Crystal Scepter, a Deathcap, an Abyssal Scepter, and a Zhonya's Hourglass. Lots of other items such as Frozen Heart, Void Staff, Deathfire Grasp, or Banshee's Veil, are also an option on Annie.

Alternate builds: After her most recent buff, I imagine Annie is able to jungle if you have a rune page of tier 3 armor yellows, tier 3 flat ability power blues, and tier 3 ability power quints. Test it out with a friend in a custom game first, but I imagine this could be very fun and pretty viable if done right.

--by Kittsy

Cho'Gath, the Terror of the Void

Start Q, then take E at 2 and W at 3. Max R>E>W>Q. In lane phase just farm and harass, hard. You will usually push most people back, so BUY WARDS. DON'T FORGET THE PASSIVE. This is what makes him immovable in lane. If you need health or mana and can farm, go for it, just don't push out. Leave E on always unless you are avoiding tower aggro.

Start either boots pots or Dorans ring. Always rush catalyst into roa, going for tanky boots. If you are tankiest go straight tank after roa, otherwise go tanky ap. Glacial Shroud should always be a goal after roa, Frozen Heart is a great item on him for the mana/armor. Abyssal scepter and Rylai's give you some more damage while increasing your tankiness.

1/21/8 with the offensive buff in Summoners for exhaust. I run MP Marks, Armor Seals, MR Glyphs and MS Quints. He is viable top or jungle, I like him top ;)
Unless your R is stacked you should only use it on minions or to secure kills, with 6 stacks you can use it mainly for harass and its also great for securing baron/dragon. 1000 true damage is no joke. Don't forget to get your stacks back after deaths.

And remember, he does run on mana, so don't spam, unless you got dat dank blue from that kid you feasted on. Just farm, if they come to your minions just Q them up then W them, good damage, and sends them running behind their minions every time. Try to line up your Q and W so you also get last hits while harassing them, great way to regen health, but you will lose a bit of mana even after the passive.
End Goal, be the biggest champion in the game.

Masteries: 21/0/9, standard AD carry. Alternatively you can go 23/0/7, putting points into the MPen mastery and taking them out of life steal.

Summoners: Ignite/Flash. Corki does solid burst damage and ignite will help you secure kills. Alternatively you can go the oRb Nien route and take Cleanse, which is considerably stronger lategame than Ignite.

Skill order: QWQEQRQ, then max R -> E -> Q -> W. Your best harass in lane comes from auto + Q + auto, and Q also allows you to clear waves later on with Q + R combo, as well as giving vision in brush. Take one level in W early for the escape, but max it last since you don't use it for the damage. E is AMAZING in conjunction with Leona's sunlight proc, and is the reason that lane is so strong. Later on, E and your passive true damage will allow you to shred through tanks.

Item build: There are two ways of building Corki. With either, you'll be starting boots + pots. After this, it depends on how your lane progresses. If you're getting early kills and are ahead on farm in lane, going Phage -> IEdge -> Trinity Force or Phage -> Sheen -> Zeal -> TF -> IE will help you snowball. Triforce is a great item with an early advantage; you take full advantage of all its stats with the AP scaling on your Q, your mana hungriness from your spammable abilities, and your lower range. After Triforce and IE, look for what you need. Assuming you already have a vampiric scepter and your greaves, you can go Last Whisper if the opposing team is building armor or bloodthirster if you just want pure damage and more lifesteal. Full item build for this route would be greaves, triforce, IE, BT, LW, and either GA or QSS as a defensive item.

The second way of building Corki is standard AD carry. If you're even in lane, going IE -> PD -> LW / BT / defensive will let you still put out a great deal of damage, minus a little bit of extra damage on your abilities but with better damage from your autoattacks.

Tips and tricks:

NEVER. EVER. EVER. EVER. VALKYRIE INTO TEAMFIGHTS. It is the best or second best (Trist jump) escape of any AD carry. The cooldown is long enough that if you don't kill everyone very quickly, you won't be able to use it to get back out. It is an ESCAPE. Use it as such. IF AND ONLY IF you are trying to CATCH a SINGLE TARGET, you can use W to initiate. Do not use it in such a manner if there are multiple enemies nearby.

You synergize very well with almost any support, especially kill lanes. Leona, as noted, is absolutely ideal for Corki because Gatling Gun and Sunlight go together perfectly. Blitz and Taric are also good picks. Your aa + Q + aa combo goes fairly well with Sona harass.

Positioning in fights as Corki is somewhat difficult because his range isn't the best, but thanks to your true damage and armor shred you can attack most any target and still do great damage.

Your missiles are everything. If you can't land them with some degree of regularity, your damage output will be significantly decreased. The range is massive but the missiles themselves are fairly small, so just try to be aware of your opponent's or opponents' movements and predict as such.

--by this1neguy

Dr.Mundo, the Madman of Zaun

Dr. Mundo is a flexible champion, that itemizes health as well as Armor and MR. If jungling, start with boots and 3 pots, or Cloth Armor and 5 pots if you don't feel comfortable in your runes. A must have item on Dr. Mundo is Heart of Gold, as it offers you much needed health as well as helpful Gp10. After HoG, I would say there are 5 different choices. Wit's End, Spirit Visage, Warmog's Armor, Aegis of the Legion or Ionic Spark. Wit's End is pretty standard if you need to do more damage, and you had an average to above average start. Spirit Visage usually is bought second, or compliments one of the other items I gave, as it makes your passive and ult so strong, pick this up second if you need survivability and you're behind. Warmog's should usually only be picked up if you're very fed, or as a later item. Aegis of the Legion is good if no one else on your team is going to pick it up. Ionic Spark is an interesting item, buy it if your team needs a strong split pusher, and if you can get it early enough you can tear through the small camps. Don't buy Ionic Spark if you're new to Mundo. After 1-2 of these items, upgrade your HoG to Randuin's and think of what you need most. Often times this means MR/Armor. Good MR options include: Wit's End, Force of Nature, and possibly Abyssal Scepter. For Armor, Atma's Impaler, or Sunfire Cape are the best options. Later on, a GA is a huge pain in the ass for the enemy team.

Skill order is usually: Start W, and max it. Take an early point in Q, but leave it there. Max E second, ult whenever you can.

Tailwind - Increases the Movement Speed of all allied champions by 3%.

Howling Gale - Janna summons a mighty whirlwind, which she can release to deal 60/85/110/135/160 (+0.75) + 25/30/40/50/60 (for each second it charges) magic damage to all targets in its path, in addition to knocking them into the air.

The whirlwind travels further and knocks enemies higher into the air after each second it channels.

Howling Gale is your crowd control and can be used as a great defensive tool. It can also be used to clear creep waves under a tower and knock an enemy into the air allowing you or your teammate to escape.

Active: Janna launches her elemental at the target, dealing 60/115/170/225/280 (+0.8) magic damage, and slowing their Movement Speed by 24/30/36/42/48% for 4 seconds. Janna loses the passive benefit while Zephyr is on cooldown.

Offensively this skill lets you catch up and drastically slow a fleeing enemy champion allowing your team to catch up and potentially score a kill.

Defensively, you run really fast and if they run faster you can slow them down.

Eye of the Storm - Janna shields a target ally champion or turret with a defensive gale that lasts for up to 5 seconds. The shield absorbs 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.9) damage and grants 14/23/32/41/50 Attack Damage until it breaks.

This is your pew pew by proxy skill. Shielding your AD will grant them a damage bonus which is wonderful for early harass. It can also be used to block incoming damage or even shielding your tower. I believe (someone correct me) tower gains damage bonus when shielded. Catching someone under tower with your slow or tornado can be devastating.

Personally I use this as my "Oh shit" button when I need enemies to get away from either me or my team. It can also be used offensively if played correctly. You can "push" enemies into your tower or even into team fights. Given the right circumstances you could even push away enemies trying to help the person out of position. Janna's ultimate can also be used in situations such as dragon or baron to push the health bars back up.

What to max first: My preference is to max E first and then W.

Items

Standard support items for Janna. Start out with:

x3 & x3

or if facing a dedicated support who you know will be buying wards:
x2 &

Ideally you'll want to stay in the center of bot lane and depending on enemy jungler you'll be placing the pink ward into the bot lane bush in river. This allows you to clear wards early game and allow your jungler potentially free access. Green wards are multipurpose for lower bushes and dragon. Look into warding tutorials to get an idea of placement.

When you back the first time (level 3 for early Philosophers Stone, or around level 6 normally):

into then > into

Each and every time you back you should be picking up at least one ward. Pinks are good for end of laning phase at dragon and baron. If you're doing exceptionally well in your lane, consider picking up an oracles.

Build your boots into either:

or

"Core Items"

In mid to late game you should be paying attention to what your jungler is buying. If you have a support based jungler who has purchased a Shurelyia's consider buying an early Zeke's Herald instead.

This plays differently to the 'standard' tankier Morde builds you see (and you can transition between the two depending on how they game is going), between the % HP from DFG, % HP from your ult, and MPen from runes/masteries/Sorc Shoes/Void Staff, this build is very able to nuke a majority of a tank's HP, put out good sustained damage in any fight, and, like any Morde build, dominate any fight where you get a successful ult off an on an AD Champion. This Morde build should not be on the front line. He should not be tanking or initiating. He can be tanky in long fights simply because he's Morde, but that isn't this build's role. He can entirely instagib a squishy to give you a 6v4 teamfight, take out a majority of a bruiser's help, and generally be really good in a sustained fight once all people's longcooldown spells have been used. I really like the build and have done great with it.

-- By Kittsy

Riven, the Exile

Riven is built as a strong hypercarry or tanky DPS in the top lane or the jungle. She is very mobile with her skills, and becomes a very tanky threat later in the game, as well as having an amazing scaling and amazing steroid. However, CC will shut her down quite fast as she will not be able to combo her skills fast enough.

For skilling, get one level in each spell from levels 1-3. Get R whenever possible, and max W first, but feel free to put points in E if you need a stronger shield from harass early game. After that max either Q for damage or E for tankiness. E is a hard-scaling shield. A general build is to go Boots + 3 Pots, then Double Dorans into a Bloodthirster. From there, get Guardian Angel and Last Whisper/Frozen Mallet, and whatever tankiness items you need. In the laning phase try to last hit, but you can go all-in on certain champions at level 1, you do a ton of damage throughout the laning phase but can be caught in a compromising situation extremely quickly.

Quick Tips:

Riven gains damage from autoattacking in between her skills, because of her passive steroid.

Her third Q proc will slightly knockback someone, and can cancel channels and easily peel.

Having her ult up increases her AD, giving bonus shield and increasing the range on her skills, which allow her to do more AoE damage with Q and W. Wind Slash can be used as a finisher or just pure AoE damage into 5 enemies.

--by Valitrix

Varus, the Arrow of Retribution

A lot of Varus' damage comes from proccing his W stacks (Blight). At max rank of W, after three auto attacks, his skills will do 5% of the target's maximum health in magic damage, EACH. Try to remember this when you go into fights. Also, the thing about Q is that it's not always the greatest idea to charge it up to max every time. In a heated teamfight or skirmish, it's good to get a few autoattacks off then quickly pop E and Q to proc Blight stacks and do tons of damage. I build him like Graves, go BT first into PD and LW/IE then defensive item. Also, don't underestimate the slow on his E, and don't forget that it reduces healing as well.

--by puapsyche

Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper

Vladimir is usually played as a mage in top or midlane. He is strong in lane because of his combination of being manaless and having a self heal, and in teamfights because his ultimate amplifies his entire team's damage. Don't be fooled by his passive - it can give a pretty nice amount of HP with your AP, but the AP it gives for building HP is quite small and not nearly worth focusing on. It's also easy to be fooled by his W. It can deal damage and heal you for a portion of that, but it hurts you to activate and doesn't do great damage. It's almost always better to use as an escape mechanism. Usual items include Hextech Revolver(eventually Will of the Ancients), Crystal Scepter, and Deathcap. A lot of players have recently been using Deathfire Grasp too.

Alternative builds: I suppose tank or jungle Vladimir might be vaguely possible, but I'd very much recommend avoiding either.

Weak early on so be careful and dont pick against long range harass champs like cass. Start boots+3pots Build tear then catalyst/negatron/glacial then finish boots and AA, after you have some options, build any of RoA/BV/deathcap/voidstaff/abyssal/rylai

Rotation is QWQRQEQ repeat. Rmemeber R gives an MS boost so use that to escape or chase, CD is super low so use it when ever, also, use R to get hp back in lane. 9/0/21 masteries taking buff duration, CDR, and mana masteries. Ryze is a tanky ap so dont be afraid to get into the thick of it. He can beat most champs solo so use that to your advantage.

Q has such mad early burst at low-ish CD, though it doesn't scale as well. E is decent early, but scales okayish, and really shines once you have more AD to capitalize on AD scaling and armor reduction. Maxing E first can work, but Q just brings so much early, that when you're playing Corki in a kill lane, you always want Q over E, since you wanna lay down as much hurt as possible in as little time.

Jarman leads all champions in manliness. As such, he sees play both in top lane AND roughing up buffs in the jungle.

In the jungle, skill order E-Q-E-W, R>E>Q>W. Start blue, or red then right to blue. You can get away with boots 3, regrowth 1, or cloth 5. Get an early Razor, and gp10 items if main tank. Build a good combo of tanky (focus on resistances for shield) and damage (Triforce/Wriggles/occasional atmas).

Top lane is similar, though you may chose to max Q first for poke and armor reduction.

Focus on early ganks, you bring awesome damage with your passive, have two forms of CC, essentially a 12 second flash, and, when you hit 6, an ult sure to blow an escape, or secure a kill. Top lane is similar, early aggression, transition into teamfights as main tank/bruiser

(Small tip, use E-Q and slow before R to blow any possible escapes they may have)

Masteries are 9/21/0, runes are MS quints, mr blues (p/lvl or flat), flat armor yellows, and AD reds for top or AS reds for jungle.